BRONTE — Everything from drought and cattle herd liquidation to the farm bill, immigration reform, eminent domain and cattle rustling headed the agenda at a gathering of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association Tuesday.

About 150 TSCRA members and guests assembled at historic Fort Chadbourne to enjoy dinner — beef, of course — and hear about issues affecting the cattle industry.

“A bill (HB 2748) is coming up Friday in the Texas House of Representatives at Austin to establish a process to make it easier for pipeline companies to obtain power of eminent domain,” said Eldon White, TSCRA executive vice president/CEO. “The legislation does not require pipeline companies to give proper notice of their common carrier application to affected landowners.”

The TSCRA wants to make it more difficult to be designated as a common carrier, he said.“All entities seeking the power of eminent domain should be open and transparent about their intended use,” White said. “Landowners should continue to have the ability to contest any entity’s attempts to gain the power of eminent domain. Unfortunately, HB 2748 makes it easier for pipeline companies to condemn land while limiting the rights of landowners.”

Attendees also heard from Runnels County rancher Richard Thorpe concerning a rise in cattle rustling, mainly in East Texas, because of high cattle prices.

Thorpe, TSCRA’s second vice president, said the organization was founded in 1877 in Graham to fight cattle theft. TSCRA has 30 special rangers stationed throughout Texas and Oklahoma trained in all facets of law enforcement. The water issue is in the forefront of landowners and TSCRA members see the need to develop more water sources as the population increases.“There is only so much water out there without more development of water sources,” he said. “We place very high priority on implementing the water plan that has been developed by the Water Development Board that has been around for several years, but has never had the funding it needs to kick-start it and get local municipalities working on water projects.

“So, TSCRA is supportive of using ‘rainy day’ funding as a revolving loan program for municipalities to borrow money to get their projects started — either surface water development or drilling wells — and the revenue from those projects could pay off the loan,” White said.

Touching on immigration reform, White said the association is in favor of some type of guest worker program.

“We need a streamlined guest worker expedite program without being tied up in red tape while crops rot in the field,” he added.